Missing Simmons
by Chiefie
Summary: When Mr. Simmons is kidnapped, Arnold and his gang must find out what has happened to their beloved teacher. To make matters even worse, a blizzard is keeping the kids stuck in their school.
1. Prologue

Missing Simmons  
  
By Chief  
  
Note: All this Hey Arnold! stuff really belongs to Nick and Viacom, so I'm just borrowing their concepts, ok? Just playing, but enjoy the story. This also is a romance story, but will not get to that for a little while.  
  
1. Prologue  
  
The midnight hour was steadily approaching on a late December evening where snow was falling so quickly there would be inches in literally minutes. The roads on Hillwood City Highway were already beginning to get extremely hard to deal with. This made a large school bus traveling down the road have an extremely difficult time that night. A middle-aged teacher also was having a difficult time, in an attempt to quiet down his anxious fourth-graders.  
  
"All right, class, just settle down now," he told them as the bus slowly turned down their exit to approach the school building.  
  
"Aw, pipe down, Granola Boy, I'm running home and sleeping the moment we step off this torture chamber."  
  
"Helga, please," he replied at his students. "I know we all have our special plans for when we arrive at the school, but we could be in danger now."  
  
"What, is Frosty the Snowman going to devour our bus?" Helga asked.  
  
"No, it looks like we may get snowed in the school."  
  
"What!" yelled Harold Berman. "I'll starve!"  
  
Thankfully, Gerald, his fellow classmate, gave him a comforting response. "Harold, we just are getting back from Pizza Canyon, where you ate not only your pizza, but mine and Robert's, too."  
  
"Well, I may get hungry again."  
  
"But Mr. Simmons, what ever will we do when we do need do need some food." Lila, another member of the class, asked.  
  
"Well, Lila, if you would remember when we were stuck at the school for the flood, we used a special emergency supply of food to take care of us. I believe we still have some left over, so there's nothing to worry about".  
  
"Okay." Just about then the school bus pulled in front of the school.  
  
"Here, see ya," the bus driver said, but then quickly drove away.  
  
"Okay, class, sit down," Mr. Simmons told them as the entered the small classroom.  
  
"I'm just so tired, Arnold, I want to go home," Gerald told his best friend.  
  
"I know what you mean. If I hear Curly cackle one more time, I think I may lose my mind."  
  
"Maybe your Grandpa will come and rescue us like he did when there was the flood."  
  
"I don't think so, Gerald," the football-headed boy told him. "Grandpa typically gets obsessed whenever it snows. He's probably at home trying to clean off al the snow of his sidewalk."  
  
"Man, that stinks. I don't want to be here with Mr. Simmons and all of our classmates."  
  
"Me, neither, Gerald, me neither.  
  
For some reason or another, being stuck inside of the school overnight made all of the girls in the class flock together, and there they were, lying in the far corner of the classroom.  
  
"Oh, my gosh. I cannot believe we are stuck inside a cold, smelly, school, out of all times, in the middle of the night!"  
  
"I'm ever so certain everything will turn out fine, Rhonda," said Lila.  
  
"Would you be quiet already? I swear, if I have to hear you say "ever so" one more time, I'm going to go nuts!"  
  
A small boy with black hair approached Rhonda. "Really?"  
  
"Get, away, Curly! You freak!" She paused for a minute to collect herself, and then resumed her thought process. "I'm calling daddy," she told everyone. She took out her cell phone, and looked at the screen. "Oh, no! The battery is dead! We're all going to die." Rhonda hid in the corner and began sobbing, while Nadine, her best friend, tried to comfort her.  
  
Meanwhile, a group of boys were sitting in the other corner, pondering thoughts of their own.  
  
"Gosh, I reckon we're gonna be in here forever," said Stinky Peterson.  
  
"Don't worry," Robert told him. "As long as we have Mr. Simmons, nothing bad can happen to us."  
  
"True," said their friend Sid. "But what if something happens to Mr. Simmons? What if he goes outside and gets lost in the snow? What if Jose, the night janitor, locks him up in his janitor's closet?"  
  
"I think it may even be too late for Jose to be here," Robert told him. "As long as we're all in this room together, there's no way Mr. Simmons is going to leave us."  
  
Phoebe Hyerdahl heard this conversation, and added her own comment. "I believe that Robert most likely is correct. The odds of Mr. Simmons leaving us in an event of such severity are highly unlikely. Especially since only twelve of us went on the field trip, so it's not so taxing to care for all of us"  
  
"Yeah, I guess so," said Sid, while Stinky was still trying to figure out what Phoebe had just said. About that time, Mr. Simmons once again took his place in front of the class and spoke again.  
  
"Okay, class. Since we appear to have that much food left, it will probably be a good idea to wait a little while longer until we eat."  
  
"No!!!!" Harold screamed. "I'm going to waste away!!!"  
  
Mr. Simmons sighed. "Al though I understand your very special eating habits, Harold, I can assure you that---" Just then the power went off, and Mr. Simmons stopped speaking.  
  
"Mr. Simmons? Are you there?" Were the typical questions coming from various students inside the room.  
  
Finally Arnold's voice distinguished itself from the crowd. "I remember Mr. Simmons having a ton of flashlights in the cabinet by the sink."  
  
"Great idea, hair boy," blabbed Helga sarcastically, and then muttered something about how wise her love was.  
  
"Got them!" Arnold yelled from the other side of the room, and turned on the flashlight. "All right, we can see now. Is everyone here?"  
  
Arnold searched around the classroom with his flashlight.  
  
"That's good. I see all of us kids are here."  
  
"And Mr. Simmons?" Someone asked.  
  
"Well, Mr. Simmons is right up-"  
  
Arnold flashed his flashlight around the classroom, and in the area around the doorway, but made a shocking discovery.  
  
Mr. Simmons was gone.  
  
Be sure to stay tuned for the next chapter! 


	2. The Midnight Meetings

2  
  
The Midnight Meetings  
  
"Okay, here's what we have to do."  
  
The class now had formed a circle in the middle of the hallway, with each student flashing it towards the center for vision. I had been over thirty minutes since Mr. Simmons had disappeared, and the class began to wonder what had happened to their beloved teacher. They had placed the flashlights they had found in Mr. Simmons cabinet  
  
"Oh, this is just great!" Helga shouted. "Now not only do we have no teacher, but we have a stupid football-head telling us what to do! He probably just got himself locked in the bathroom or something."  
  
"I don't think so, Helga."  
  
"And why is that, Geraldo?"  
  
"You know Mr. Simmons," he told her. "He find each and every one of us so special to him that he couldn't possibly just leave us here in the middle of a snowstorm. Even if he did leave, he would have told us. Plus, it's Eugene that always gets locked in the bathroom, not Mr. Simmons."  
  
Arnold quickly stopped the argument. "Well, either way, we should probably try to find him. Any of you guys have any ideas?"  
  
"I say we go to the cafeteria, break in, and eat all of the food!"  
  
"You're forgetting, Harold, that they put that enormous padlock on the cafeteria doors ever since the last time you snuck in there you devoured everything," Phoebe reminded him." Simmons is the only individual here with the keys."  
  
Curly then added his typical suggestion. "I saw we go to the zoo and---"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, free all the animals. We've heard it all before. Besides, how do expect to get out of here when we're snowed in!"  
  
"Calm down, Helga," Arnold said. "I have an idea. Why don't we just all split into small groups and look for him? I mean, as for as we know, he could have been kidnapped--"  
  
Sid started to become a little on the upset side then. "Kidnapped? KIDNAPPED! Let me, out, we're all gonna die!"  
  
Robert sighed. "Oh, no, you've got him started."  
  
"We do have one thing going for us, though. If Mr. Simmons were kidnapped, that would have to mean that they arrived at the school before the blizzard. This kind of puts a little problem over their plan. As far as we know, the kidnapper could very well still be in the building."  
  
This put Sid into a state panic. "He's still IN the building!" He now started to run around the hall, screaming, with the occasional cries for help.  
  
Gerald finally put a stop to Sid's tantrum. "Um, Arnold? You might want to tone down the suspense a bit. You're gonna give Sid a heart attack."  
  
"Oh, sorry." Arnold turned around to face the rest of the group. "Don't worry, though. We don't know for sure if anything bad happened to Mr. Simmons or not. That's just a long shot. Anyway, the best thing to do would be to split up into three groups of four to look for them. That way if anything bad did happen, we'll have enough numbers to protect ourselves."  
  
"Great idea, Football-head," Helga said sarcastically. "But how are we going to group up?"  
  
"Well, at least we have flashlights for everyone. Robert, why don't you take Harold, Stinky and Sid to search this area?"  
  
"Um, great. Thanks I think." There's not a whole lot anyone can say after the announcement that they have to lead a pig, a hick, and a kid suffering from sever paranoia."  
  
"Okay, and Lila, why don't you take Rhonda, Nadine, and Helga to the gym area of the school?"  
  
"Hey, I'm going with Rhonda!" Curly yelled from the back of the circle.  
  
"I would rather be stuck with Football-head then a nutcase like you," replied Helga.  
  
"Okay, then, Helga, you can go with us, and Curly can go with Lila's group."  
  
Lila didn't seem to mind, as usual. "We would be ever so delighted to have him." Rhonda didn't appear to be as happy, as she resumed her crying from early when she discovered she would have to be in Curly's group.  
  
"All right, that leads Phoebe and Gerald to go with me and Helga. We'll head upstairs." With that, their groups broke off and the grand search began.  
  
Arnold quickly led the way up the stairs onto the second story of the school, flashlight in hand. "Okay, we probably want to be quiet, since we don't want any kidnappers to hear us.  
  
"Arnold, I'm telling you, there are no kidnappers, and I'll prove it." Just about then Helga screamed at the top of her lungs. "Hey, Simmons! You up here?"  
  
Phoebe quickly silenced her. "Helga, be quiet! I think in a situation of this magnitude, Arnold is right. We don't know if there are kidnappers, but if there are, we don't know how dangerous they can be." Just about then they got to the end of the upstairs hall, and turned around.  
  
"I don't see anything," Gerald told his group. "Let's just go back down, man."  
  
"Wait a second, Gerald, I see something."  
  
"What now? You're probably seeing things. You know how Raul, the night janitor, likes to clean these halls good on the weekends."  
  
"Yeah, I know. I just think he would have saw this." He lifted up to small items from the ground. "A piece of chalk and a wire. Maybe it's a clue."  
  
"Oh, great the Football-head's got a clue, ladies and gentlemen. A clue to how big a buffoon he is." Helga then snuck into a dark corner and pulled a locket out from her shirt. "Oh, Arnold, my love, so great at finding, such intelligence. And yet I wish I could kick him out in the middle of the blizzard." Just then she heard a sharp wheezing come from behind her, and she quickly flung her fist around. "Why are you even here?"  
  
"I don't understand this. Why does everything, and I mean everything, bad happen to me!"  
  
"Calm, down, Rhonda. As soon as we find Mr. Simmons, everything will be fine."  
  
"It WON'T be fine, Nadine! We're stuck in a snowstorm, locked in a dark school with no teach, no lights, and a possible criminal on the loose! On top of that, my cell phone batteries are dead, and I have a little creep following me around! What could get worse!"  
  
"Can I smell your hair now?"  
  
"Ugh! Get away!" Rhonda now practically threw a temper tantrum, and resorted to bawling and pounding her fists on the ground.  
  
Then, out of nowhere, Lila made her own little comment. "You know, this is ever so strange. Arnold hasn't tried to hit on me once since we've been here."  
  
As for the other group, they apparently didn't even want to try to find Mr. Simmons, or were too scared to look. They had simply decided to sit on the floor and engage in one of America's favorite games.  
  
"So, Stinky," said Sid. "Who do you like?"  
  
Stinky paused for a moment, thought the difficult decision over, and finally came up with his answer. "Well, I reckon I've been in love many times, on account of there's so many purdy girls here. Right now, Miss Lila's on my mind. She's nice, funny, and cute. It's all a man could ask for."  
  
"Lila has no soul," muttered Robert.  
  
"Well, Mr. Picky, who do you like then?" Sid asked him.  
  
"What if I don't want to tell you?"  
  
"Then you lose the game."  
  
Robert finally let out a sigh. "Well, I think I'm starting to like Rhonda. I mean, I wish there was some way I could tell her, but I think Curly would go ballistic on me."  
  
"You're a brave man, Rob."  
  
"Yeah, I guess so. I'm sure I'll get a chance someday, but since you asked me, Sid, who do you like."  
  
Afraid to answer, Sid just yelled out "I like myself!"  
  
"Well, I reckon Sid loses the game, Robert. But what happened to Harold?"  
  
Harold was lying on the floor, fast asleep. Suddenly, though, everyone was wide-awake when they heard a loud pounding sign nearby.  
  
"What? What's that?" Harold asked when he awoke.  
  
"I don't know," said Robert. "Maybe we should check it out."  
  
Note: Sorry for the wait on the update. The next couple of weeks are going to be very busy for me, so updates will be kind of stagnant.  
  
Oh, and by the way (in case you didn't know), this takes place before "My Name Is Robert." 


	3. Continuing Onward

3  
  
The Continuation  
  
The four boys stood still in the center of the hallway for the longest time. The scratching and pounding noises that they had heard originally were growing louder and louder. Finally a voice reached out through the silence of the frightened fourth-graders.  
  
"Man, I don't wanna die! I'm only in the fourth grade. Save me, Harold, save me!" That, of course, was Sid.  
  
"Calm down, Sid," Robert told him. "Now would a kidnapper really be screaming and pounding for help?"  
  
"He would if he was trying to trick us and kidnap us as well!"  
  
"You know, it's probably one of the kids. Or who knows? It could even be Mr. Simmons locked up somewhere."  
  
"I reckon Robert's right," agreed Stinky. I suppose that whoever it is needs some help."  
  
"Okay, you guys can help him. I'm staying right here."  
  
"All right, Sid, you can stay here alone and wait for the kidnappers to get you themselves, or you can come with us. It's your choice." Robert, Harold, and Stinky began to walk closer to the mysterious sounds, but surprisingly (almost like it was out of some movie), Sid began to chase after them, telling them to wait for him.  
  
"Okay, the sound seems to be coming from the boy's room," Robert told the others. "Let's open it. Not like a criminal to be wanting help in the bathroom."  
  
"I want my mommy---" bawled Harold, still a little bit drowsy from his brief nap.  
  
"Stop being such a dang fraidy cat, Sid. Just open the door, Robert." Robert took Stinky's advice, slowly opening the door that was still being pounded on. As soon as it opened, he flashed his flashlight inside the room to see nothing but---  
  
Eugene.  
  
"Hi guys!" Eugene said, in a surprisingly enthusiastic manner.  
  
"Eugene!" Harold screamed. "We thought you were a kidnapper.  
  
"You're so silly Harold," Eugene said as he elbowed Harold, just making him even more angry. "Apparently one of my friends rigged the bathroom door again, and the janitors forget to let me out. That's the third time this month. Good thing you guys showed up. I would have been there until morning."  
  
Sid sighed. "Only you, Eugene. Only you. Let's just hope we can get out of this mess. I want to go home."  
  
"Well, Eugene, since you were here anyway, did you hear anything strange?"  
  
"Now that you mention it, I heard some voice talking about an hour ago. They were saying something about finding the perfect place to hide, since Plan A was ruined."  
  
"Well, I guess they were talking about the snowstorm," said Robert. "That at least proves there is a kidnapper here somewhere, we just got to find him. I think that actually helped, Eugene." With that the five boys headed down the hallway to search for any signs of their missing Simmons.  
  
Meanwhile, Arnold and his company were making their rounds upstairs, and Arnold made a brilliant observation when looking out the window, which was barely transparent by that point.  
  
"Hey guys, I just thought of something," he said as he signaled for the rest of his group to come over and take a look.  
  
"What, you just figure out it was snowing?"  
  
"No, Helga," he replied, as he typically would to her sarcasm. "That building across the street has a light shining inside, and so that house over there."  
  
"So? What's your point?"  
  
""Well, you know, schools like this typically have some kind of emergency power supply, in case there is a power outage of some sort, but we have no light in the entire school. So either the school is connected to no other building in this neighborhood, or somebody shut off the power. Is there a fuse box here somewhere?"  
  
"Yeah, I think so," Gerald told him. "Back when I was ball monitor, I remember having to go down to the school's basement, and seeing a fuse box in the corner. But why would anyone turn off the power?"  
  
"Crimeny, Gerald! Haven't you ever watched any murder mysteries or anything? The criminal always creates some kind of diversion so he can sneak in and do his evil deeds! Even someone as brainless as you could understand that."  
  
"I must share an agreement with Helga," Phoebe. "Although one thing still troubles me about all of this."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Although the power was shut off by the kidnapper of Mr. Simmons, it was a very short period of time before Arnold discovered the flashlights, not nearly long enough for the kidnapper to run up here and capture Mr. Simmons, and get far away for us to not find them."  
  
"So are you saying---"  
  
"Affirmative, Gerald. There must be more than one person involved in this kidnapping."  
  
"Great," muttered Helga. "I was mad enough when we had one lunatic on the loose. Now we're dealing with two. What I they try to come after us? Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll just take Football-head and the world will be a better place to live in."  
  
"First of all, we should probably go down to the basement to turn on the power," Arnold said, ignoring the crude comments made by Helga.  
  
"All right, man, let's roll." With that, the four of them slowly made their way downstairs in hopes of trying to put an end to this mystery.  
  
The third and final group was discovering very little, however, and spent most of their time trying to cheer Rhonda up, who now was a bit more angry than depressed.  
  
"All right, if we're going to be stuck here, might as well look around in the gym," she said, kind of in a hurry to end all of the madness.  
  
"Nadine went up and checked the lock. "Sorry, Rhonda," she told her. The gym is locked, just like the cafeteria  
  
"Great," she replied. "What kind of person would lock a gym? It's not like we're going to run in there and steal everything."  
  
"Well, actually, most people---"  
  
"I don't care, Nadine! We are not most people, and shouldn't have to be treated like them."  
  
"Hey, I smell something, I think something's wrong," Curly said, seemingly out of nowhere.  
  
"You probably are smelling yourself. When was the last time you bathed, anyway? You smell like you came out of a dumpster," Rhonda said rudely.  
  
"I think you should be nicer to Curly, Rhonda. I think Curly's being very helpful."  
  
"Really?" Curly said, almost in shock. "It's finally nice to be appreciated for something for once. You're not so bad yourself, Nadine---"  
  
"Whoa, sorry to break up the love fest," interrupted Rhonda. "But we are supposed to be looking for Mr. Simmons. She paused for a second, and then spoke again. "You, know, Lila, you haven't said anything in a long time. Where do think Mr. Simmons is?" There was no answer. "Lila?" Rhonda shouted, much louder than before.  
  
Just like Mr. Simmons, Lila had disappeared. 


	4. Fusion

4  
  
Fusion  
  
"Lila? Lila? Are you there?"  
  
After the surprising disappearing act of Lila, the rest of the group was slightly thrown into an antsy demeanor; simply running around, trying to find the departed member of their group.  
  
"Oh, my gosh," shrilled Rhonda. "First, we lose Mr. Simmons, now Lila's gone. We don't know who they're coming after next!" What if they want me next? Nadine, you must protect me."  
  
Nadine sighed. "Rhonda, I don't think they are going to come after us again. As long as we stay together, we'll be fine. It would be good to find out when the last time we heard he voice, that way we can find out about where she vanished."  
  
"Other than this little area, we really haven't been anywhere else."  
  
"Wow, you know we are pretty messed up when Curly even starts to talk intelligent," Rhonda said as they tried to decipher Lila's disappearance, as well as Mr. Simmons.  
  
"Hey, Gerald! You sure you are able to see okay down there?"  
  
"Yeah, Arnold. I'm doing fine. All I have to do is find the fuse box, and flip a couple of switches."  
  
Arnold and his group were now descending the stairs into P. S. 118's vast basement, with Gerald leading the way.  
  
"Geraldo better be right about the fuse box, Football-head. Otherwise I'm going to steal both of your flashlights and lock you down here with the rats."  
  
"Oh, don't worry, Helga," Phoebe told her. "I highly believe in the capabilities of Gerald, due to the fact that he appears to know everything about this facility."  
  
Suddenly from behind them they heard a voice proclaim "Got it!" in which for the first time since their arrival from the snowstorm, the power in P. S. 118 was restored.  
  
"All right!" Arnold shouted as him and Gerald worked their way up the stairs to meet their group. "Now we finally can be able to make sense of this mystery."  
  
"Thank you, Gerald. That expedition of yours was so courageous, " Phoebe said as she approached Gerald and wrapped her arms around him.  
  
"Oh, it was nothing," replied the boy sheepishly.  
  
"Okay, sorry the break up the party," Helga stated rudely. "But don't you think that since the power's on, we should try to find out what happened to Me. Simmons? Did you even think of that?"  
  
"Yeah, we should probably try to find the others," agreed Arnold. "If we can all get together and find out what we all discovered, we may be able to piece together the solution to this mystery. Let's head back to Mr. Simmons' room. Everyone else is bound to head there eventually." And now, with the power restored and a new feeling of hope amongst themselves, they began the journey back to the classroom of their kidnapped teacher.  
  
Meanwhile, the five boys were standing outside Mr. Simmons' classroom when the power surprisingly came on.  
  
The first reaction came, of course, from Harold. "All right! We're saved! Somebody loves us!' he began dancing around the room in a jovial manner, soon to be joined by Eugene, who began to swing-dance with Harold, or at least until her accidentally was flung into a locker. A quiet "I'm okay" quickly followed.  
  
"Okay-" Sid stated in sheer awe of how stupid some people could be. "We have the power on, but what do we do now?"  
  
"I reckon we just wait until morning, when we can finally get out of here."  
  
"So, Stinky, you would just leave our beloved teacher here with a kidnapper than try to rescue him?"  
  
"I suppose so, on account of I don't wanna get kidnapped with him."  
  
"Sounds like a good plan," Sid added, until the conversation was interrupted by Robert's discovery.  
  
"Hey, guys. I think we just had a major breakthrough. I just found the keys."  
  
"The keys!" Harold screamed. "Yes! Now I can finally eat!" Before Robert could stop him, Harold ran over to the cafeteria door, opened it, and quickly bolted inside.  
  
"I hope the kidnappers aren't in there," were Robert only words in the sheer moments of excitement. The mystery had almost been uncovered, and the classroom almost had their teacher (and their fellow classmate back). However, there still were many issues to be figured out first. For instance, they still had to find out the whereabouts of Mr. Simmons and the kidnappers.  
  
It was approximately fifteen minutes when everyone arrived at Mr. Simmons room. Arnold's party met up with Rhonda's on the way, so they both headed back to their meeting together. It took most of the other guys' time to try to persuade Harold to come back to the classroom (they had to bribe him with ice cream), but eventually Harold made his way to the meeting area, as well.  
  
With that, the meeting commenced. "Okay, we are finally all back together as a class, so I thought we could all recap on what each other found. If we can put all of the pieces together, we might be able to get Mr. Simmons back. While we were gone, we found a couple of unusual clues. We checked the distance from here to the fuse box on the way back, and realized that this was humanly impossible for someone to turn off the lights and kidnap Mr. Simmons before Arnold got to the flashlights. So there must have been another person involved in this kidnapping." This brought scared reactions from the students, but Arnold continued on.  
  
"Also, we realized on the way back that we didn't hear a single noise when the lights were knocked out. So they must have either gagged him, or knocked him unconscious. Despite this, our strangest clue we found upstairs, where we saw a piece of chalk and a wire. Considering the fact that they were together, they must be somehow related to the kidnappers."  
  
"Okay, do the guys want to speak next?"  
  
Robert, selected for some odd reason, came up and spoke for his group.  
  
"Since I'm not a big talker, I'll keep this short," Early in our search we found Eugene locked inside a locker, like he usually is on weekends. This time, he said he had recently heard voices and footsteps, but didn't recognize the voices. Other than that, all we could find was the keys to the building, which we found about twenty minutes ago."  
  
"Sounds like you did a real riveting job there, Robbie," said Helga.  
  
"Wait a second," Sid said curiously. "Those keys couldn't have been there when we walked in. They were in plain sight. That means that Mr. Simmons must have thrown them down while he was being hauled away."  
  
"That's a good point, Sid," Arnold told him. "I bet those keys can get us to the kidnapper, too. Okay, who wants to represent Rhonda's group?"  
  
"Ooh, ooh, me, me!" Curly shouted from the corner of the hall. "First, me and Rhonda---"  
  
"Hold it right there, you little freak," interrupted Rhonda. "I'll tell our story, Arnold."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"Overall, we really didn't discover that much, other than that my hair is a total mess and Nadine has worn the same shoes for four days."  
  
"Rhonda."  
  
"Oh, sorry. Anyway, Lila got kidnapped, too."  
  
This generated the largest amount of excitement from everyone. Groups ran around screaming, some afraid, some shocked. A tear ran down Arnold's cheek. Like many times before, Stinky hid in a trashcan.  
  
"Wait, wait, WAIT!" Phoebe surprisingly yelled, silencing the commotion. "I think after cautiously listening to your reports, I may have just solved this mystery. All we have to do now is venture to the one place no one would dare to go. The perfect hiding place."  
  
"Where's that?" Someone asked.  
  
"The boys locker room." 


	5. The Rescue

5  
  
The Rescue  
  
Stinky turned over to ask Phoebe, "Why would anyone want to go to the girls' locker room? It smells like rotten cheese."  
  
"That's exactly her point," Arnold told the befuddled boy. "Nobody ever wants to go in there. It smells terrible, and with the doors locked, that makes it---"  
  
"Wait!" Sid exclaimed. "That means if whoever the kidnapper was could get into the locker room, and we have Mr. Simmons' keys, that means that they have their own set!"  
  
"Let's go," was the yell of one of the people watching from nearby, and the gang began to quickly head over to the most forgotten places.  
  
"Wait," Phoebe said. "If we are going to trek in there in such a disposition, it would probably be beneficiary to get some rope, in order to detain the kidnappers."  
  
"Good, idea, Phoebe, " Arnold told her. "I'll grab it before we head in there.  
  
In a matter of minutes all the students had congregated inside the gym, the only way to get to the locker rooms, and waited there while Arnold went to grab some rope from the coach's office.  
  
"Got it," he said to the group as he hurried back. "Now, we need to come up with some sort of plan, in case there is a struggle. Harold can carry the rope, since he is the biggest and strongest of any of us."  
  
"But, but, but---"  
  
"Ah, snap out of it, pink boy!" Helga said. "Maybe your girth will at least protect us in case they have weapons or something."  
  
"Okay," continued Arnold. If the kidnappers are in there, we need to work on tying them up as quickly as we can, then we can extract information from them. Maybe we can find out why they would want to kidnap Mr. Simmons and Lila, of all people." Everyone then got into some sort of ready position and waiting for Arnold's signal. "Now on the count of three we'll bust in there." Arnold slowly counted of the numbers. "One, two, three!" With that that gang rushed in there as quickly as they could, with Harold leading the way. They saw two people with black ski masks over their head, and quickly tied them up before they would even pause to check their identity.  
  
"Look, there's Mr. Simmons and Lila!" Robert yelled in the midst of all of the excitement in the small room. Quickly Robert and Rhonda began untying their two lost members, while the rest of the gang watched the two masked figures. Finally they finished the job, and everyone began to settle down and look towards their beloved teacher.  
  
"Friends, I am so pleased and grateful that you boys and girls would put forth the effort to rescue me and your classmate. For that I thank you, and I'm sure that Lila does, too. You all are so special to me. Now why don't we find out who these kidnappers were?"  
  
In some kind of nostalgic Scooby-Doo moment, Phoebe went over and yanked the ski mask off the larger of the two bodies, and the class let out a gasp.  
  
"Miss Slovak?"  
  
"Of course," Phoebe told us. "It all makes perfect sense. She probably kept the set of keys from when she was a teacher here, and used them in her fiendish plot to kidnap Mr. Simmons." Phoebe looked over at her former teacher. "I know you supposedly departed to play golf, but why don't you tell us how you really left?"  
  
Ms. Slovak looked over the group of students, scowled, but still told her tale. "Okay, I'm not a golfer. I was fired. That chump Wartz accused me of using too many supplies, and fired me. He told me he had a much better teacher in line, and was going to pay him twice as much as he paid me! That horrible man took my job away from me, and I haven't gotten one since! My record is stained."  
  
"And guess what?" Helga said as she stood over her. "We don't feel a good bit sorry for you, especially when we found out that you were secretly kidnapping students and holding them ransom."  
  
"What! That's outrageous!"  
  
"No, it's true, ladies and gentlemen. All true," Helga continued. "It seemed a little bizarre when you left so quickly we had Phoebe do a little checking files a couple of months ago. It turns out Miss Slovak had kidnapped Billy and attempted to kidnap Torvald, but realized she couldn't handle him. So her story is crap."  
  
"Plus, when I observed the piece of chalk upstairs, I knew you were involved. You were obsesses with chalk," added Phoebe in her usual straightforward manner.  
  
"But who is the other kidnapper?" Sid asked through all of the confusion.  
  
"That's what perplexed me for a period of time. Then when I saw that wire upstairs, I realized that there has been someone else that has disappeared as of late. Someone who would have something to gain by kidnapping Lila." Phoebe signaled to Helga, who ripped off the mask of the other kidnapper. "None other than Ruth P. MacDougal."  
  
"Ruth!"  
  
"Ruth?"  
  
"Hi, Ruth. Hi, Ruth. Hi-"  
  
"Would you stop that?" Gerald said to Arnold, who was obviously in shock that his former crush could be a kidnapper.  
  
"This little snot here got a little bit jealous when miss Lila moved here," Helga said. "She realized that nobody seemed to be following her around anymore. She needed that reassurance."  
  
"Hey! You're the jealous one!" Ruth yelled. "I am so much prettier than any of you."  
  
"Aw, put a lid on it! You helped Miss Slovak in this little scheme, just so you could have your revenge and get your stalker back."  
  
"There was only one thing they didn't expect," Arnold added, out of sheer enlightenment. The blizzard. They thought they would have an easy getaway, but the snowstorm kept them locked here."  
  
Just about then they heard a large knock from the front door, and Robert ran over and opened the door to find two policemen riding a snowmobile. "Who called the police?" He asked the crowd.  
  
"I did," Harold told him. I got scared, so when the power came back on, I called them."  
  
"So I take it there are some kidnappers here?"  
  
The police quickly escorted Miss Slovak and Ruth to the police station, while Mr. Simmons elaborated on his enormous gratitude.  
  
"Since you all did such a special thing for me, I have decided not to give homework for the next week!" This brought even more excitement from the crowd. "By the way, the policemen said they would be back and one by one take you boys and girls back to your respected homes." More than anything, this brought sighs of relief.  
  
"Man, I just can't wait to be asleep," Gerald told Arnold as he boarded the snowmobile.  
  
"Yeah, I just have one wish."  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"That we never have to deal with a missing Simmons ever again."  
  
The End  
  
  
  
Author's Note: Hope you like the story. Not real long, I know, but I hope it was enjoyable. Okay, I lied about it being a romance. I thought it would be when I started it, but it didn't go in that direction. I'll change the category.  
  
Anyway, I'm going to take a couple of days off, and will start on my new Robert fic, "Robert's Search". It is going to be awesome (and a good bit longer), and I hope to post it soon. Until we meet again!  
  
Chief 


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